Internal demons are an integral part of Mick Napier's Second City signature. They showed up back in 1997 in "Paradigm Lost," which included Tina Fey, Kevin Dorff and Rachel Dratch in the cast and was one of the great Second City shows of all time, not least for the way it dramatized terror. The nagging inner monologue was there again in Napier's "Psychopath Not Taken," a memorable revue from 1998, and one of the angriest shows ever seen on Wells Street. It dared to make fun of Christopher Reeve. And it had a title that perfectly reflected this director's decades-long comedic interest in the dark road of possibilities.

So when the cast of Napier's latest Second City show, "Depraved New World," started singing "there are voices inside my head" (which is, as the academics say, the ubertext of the 102nd mainstage revue at The Second City), it was immediately clear that Napier was back directing, after an absence of around five years from the mainstage. The enjoyable but safer new show is not at the level of those Napier greats from the late 1990s, although it does have its moments of real innovation and, in a young actor named John Hartman, it introduces a whopping new comedic talent.

More about Hartman in a minute. But there is something comforting about the return of Napier's beloved and much copied device of stopping real time in the middle of a scene, introducing the alternate reality that lies in a character's head, playing out that reality, usually horrific, and then going back to the uneasy present, where we all watch the character fight off her demons and carry on with life, as we all try to do, with nothing properly reburied at all. Watch that a few times and a delicious sense of unease settles over the old cabaret joint in Old Town.

The new show takes a while to find its depravity. A few too many of its early scenes are limited by simple credibility, such as simmer-only early scene featuring Tawny Newsome, who is getting better with each show, and Hartman. He plays a kid who looks as white as the driven snow, forced by his mom to assume a biracial identity ("You had me recite Langston Hughes"). It's funny as far as it goes, but one of those voices comes into the audience's head, saying, "she would not really do that."

But a few minutes later, Hartman suddenly creates one of those characters you won't quickly forget. It has a kind of "Wayne's World" DNA; Hartman plays a loser guy in his parent's house making his own YouTube guide to heavy petting; the joke is his mother keeps interrupting him. But Hartman shows his chops fast. He is, to say the least, a distinctive physical presence. In a sketch later in the show, his fellow cast members call him "Little Dumpling."

Yup, that works. Seemingly no more than five feet tall, this debutant comes replete with a waistline that I eyeballed, enviously, at about 24 inches, an outsized head and eyes that he can cross at will, or maybe they are that way all the time. He looks about 17 years old. But man, is this guy funny.

Staring at him — and you find yourself staring at him in almost every sketch — you come to see that he has two huge assets going for him. One is a kind of manic physicality: when he finds some flailing motion, he proceeds to repeat it several times, precisely. It's beautifully weird. The other is his knack for old-fashioned detail: where other performers layer a blackout scene with, say, three distinct takes or beats, he sticks in about a dozen separate moments, each one clear, communicative and cascading into the next. You're put in mind of Martin Short at times; maybe a touch of Jack McBrayer, who also had his own particular remove from the norm and also was a character even when not playing one. But Hartman is his own dude.

Hartman and Mike Kosinski join for a sketch about two gay men on a first date at Chili's finding they have nothing in common, reminding us that having two openly gay performers opens us possibilities, just as Second City found when its once-lonely minority actors gained in number some years ago. "Mac or PC?" asks Hartman of Kosinski. "PC," says Kosinski. "Wow," says Hartman, in a kind of quiet panic, "I thought that one was a gimme."

Among the women, Chelsea Devantez has a nice specialty going in neuroses, including a funny solo number about things that make her miserable ("When I sign up for a gym membership and they ask me what my goals are, and I say to come here more than once, I cry"). Emily Walker is another decent physical comic although she needs to find more of a central place for herself in this show. She joins for a funny wrestling match that turns out to be the fitting of a bra, in one of those shops they have to torture women. In another sketch, Walker plays a mangy parrot, most amusingly.

Another Napier sig is in the sketch where someone can't decide if a character is benign or hostile: its latest manifestation is a wacko played by Hartman lurking around a senior center, taking care of the residents. Does he really work there? Hard to say. Little Dumpling might bite.

In the stronger second act, we watch Devantez and Kosinski play a couple working in a haunted house, going through a break up as they try to terrify the customers and yet stay in their assigned "scare stations." Steve Waltien, the most acerbic member of this cast, gets off some improv.

The improv shows up unusually late in a show (a bit too late for a show that's a hair long) but Newsome showboats deliciously in an eleventh-hour set-up that requires her to verbalize at top speed and pitch, barely one second after getting a suggestion. That's another sign of Napier, a guy who long has worked out his various demons on this stage but figured out early on what makes the paying customers — and on Thursday night, that included a bunch of party guys all wearing the same bowling shirts — enjoy a good night out.

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